VMware Aria Operations vs vCloud Director comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between vCloud Director and VMware Aria Operations based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed VMware Aria Operations vs. vCloud Director Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Working with VMware has supported us especially in terms of building a very powerful cloud for our customers.""The stability of the product is better than just 'good.'""What I found most valuable in vCloud Director is the multi-tenancy.""We consider it intuitive and user-friendly. It offers a variety of functions for the customer to control the networking, virtual workloads, disk snapshots, and all of vSphere's core features.""I have found the solution scales well.""vCloud Director is a stable solution.""The solution has more capabilities than OpenStack and integrates well with NSX and vCenter.""Their technical support is great. We had some difficult cases and they were able to solve them in a timely manner."

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"It helped troubleshooting issues with storms of software data that cost a lot of IO.""We can detect when, for example, one host is getting hit by a lot of VMs and we can take care of that host. It enables us to add more memory, more CPU, or maybe we just replace the host.""It removes the guess work. It gives me real data and analysis in a very user-friendly way that I can show to my management without going deep into numbers.""The most valuable feature is the ability to get a view of our entire environment in a single pane of glass. We're a very large company, so going from one interface to another to troubleshoot an issue, or even just to get capacity information, is time-consuming and not efficient. Being able to go to one place and get that information is very helpful.""The initial setup is very straightforward. It is very intuitive to install.""When there is an issue at the disk level in vSAN, vROps gives us an alarm that the issue is happening on particular disks. Other solutions cannot give this type of alert for vCenter. Even vCenter cannot give that type of information.""I have found the backup extremely useful in my use cases.""Through the trending analysis that we can do, it allowed us to quickly and easily right-size the capacity from a cluster."

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Cons
"It could be more stable. We have had issues with multiple different versions.""Initially, the setup was complex.""In the next release, we would like to see improvements with the pricing. It could be reduced.""The reason we moved to Microsoft Intune was because of the license cost of VMware. It's very expensive.""Lacking additional services reduces the level of cloud integration companies just love with Amazon and Azure.""Technical support needs to improve its skills and respond to queries faster.""This solution could improve by adding root cause analysis.""vCloud Director should improve by having support with other cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure and Google cloud."

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"We had some problems with updating it. The two times that we upgraded vRealize Operations Manager, we lost all our data.""The UI interface of the application has been stagnant for a long time.""They should have more automation features for database management.""The descriptions are not quite as user-friendly as I would like but, for the most, it's part pretty user-friendly. They could also improve on the badging nomenclature they have for batches in the system, for determining the health of a certain aspect of the systems.""We are looking to optimize all the parts. For example, vCenter can be fully deployed automatically, which is not the case with vROps. We can click some next buttons to integrate vCenter and would like these type of features for vROps, if possible.""It wasn't exactly proactive. It was supposed to, but there were a lot of delays. It could also be because of our infrastructure and the way our network was set up. If vROps could be more proactive, that would be nice. It is nice to have the information beforehand, but when there is downtime, it takes a lot of time for us to be able to see an issue in real-time, which becomes a bit challenging. If there is a way to improve the data collection for the whole vCenter that would be nice because data collection takes a lot of time.""There is room for improvement when it comes to the integration with Active Directory. Sometimes I need to log in to the application using my Active Directory account, instead of using the regular admin for vRealize Operations. If I want to deploy this tool to more users, I need that.""The what-if analysis section is not very advanced and there is a lot of room for improvement."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It is better than other solutions out there when it comes to cost."
  • "It enables us to provision new clients more quickly."
  • "We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers."
  • "The solution is costly, efficient, and robust versus alternative solutions."
  • "It runs our company in the millions of rand every month."
  • "This is an expensive solution."
  • "It's a costly product. The licenses may not be costly, but with every new development in their product, we need to purchase deployment services, and the deployment services are quite costly."
  • "The license could be less expensive and we are on a perpetual license."
  • More vCloud Director Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Don't overallocate! This means that you don't have to buy many hosts. You can save money that way."
  • "The pricing: It's expensive."
  • "Pricing is good for us. We're non-profit so we get a break on that."
  • "I would like to see a free offering. Cost is always a factor in any sort of line. Obviously, the value added is there and it's worth it."
  • "We have seen ROI in performance. It used to be our company was giving out eight CPUs to all servers. That was bad performance-wise. People were seeing slow compute times for their applications."
  • "Pricing could always be cheaper, but it's acceptable."
  • "vRealize Operations has proved to be a cost effective solution for our big environment."
  • "As we continue to implement it across multiple environments, it reduces costs as well."
  • More VMware Aria Operations Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In… more »
    Top Answer:For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched to… more »
    Top Answer: When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services… more »
    Top Answer:vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over… more »
    Top Answer: In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with… more »
    Top Answer:For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more… more »
    Ranking
    5th
    out of 75 in Cloud Management
    Views
    3,587
    Comparisons
    2,600
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    394
    Rating
    7.9
    2nd
    out of 75 in Cloud Management
    Views
    7,915
    Comparisons
    4,308
    Reviews
    28
    Average Words per Review
    457
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager, VCOPS, vRealize Operations
    Learn More
    Overview

    VMware Cloud Director, also known as vCloud Director, is a cloud management tool that offers secure, flexible, and efficient cloud resources to thousands of enterprises and IT teams across the world. The solution serves as one of the leading cloud service-delivery platforms for businesses that want to manage and operate their services effectively. By deploying this solution, companies can benefit from virtualized networking, computing, security, and storage. These benefits can be received in a timely manner, as the infrastructure of the product is operationally ready within minutes and clients do not need to install and configure physical infrastructure.

    One of the biggest advantages of vCloud Director is that it allows users to build cloud-ready applications. In several ways, it facilitates the process for developers, including:

    • Open to DevOps: The product addresses the needs of DevOps teams by providing Infrastructure as Code services with vCD Terraform Provider. This allows developers to deliver infrastructure directly from code. Additionally, it provides capabilities from Python and vCD API as well as Object Storage API and App Launchpad APIs.

    • Customization: This solution is very customizable and extensible for cloud providers to deliver their own branding, themes, and services to their clients.

    • Dev-ready cloud: vCloud Director offers support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid for vSphere and multicloud with a plugin for container service extension. Through these, native K8s Clusters or Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters can be delivered and managed through a user interface (UI) and application programming interface (API).

    vCloud Director Features

    This VMware product has various features through which users can virtualize their data and benefit from quality management solutions. Among the popular capabilities of vCloud Director are:

    • Elastic secure virtual data centers: This vCloud Director feature provides tenants with securely isolated virtual resources, fine-grained control of their public cloud services, and independent role-based authentication.

    • Multi-site management: This feature allows companies to stretch data centers across sites and geographies as well as connect to existing dedicated vCenters for access and management or on-broad into VMware vCloud Director.

    • ISV ecosystem: This feature integrates leading cloud service vendors into the product using an open extensibility framework. Some of the partners of vCloud Director include Dell Data Protection, Veeam, Cloudian, AWS S3, and Dell ECS.

    • DRaaS workload protection: This feature allows users to deliver self-service tiered disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) on-premises to cloud and cloud to cloud.

    • Cloud migration: Part of this feature is the plugin VMware Cloud Director Availability, which enables simple migration to cloud, offering self-service cold or warm migration to users' vCloud Director clouds.

    • Operational visibility and insights: The product includes an accessible dashboard and a single pane of glass to provide centralized multi-tenant cloud management views.

    • Cloud-native applications and development: This feature makes the platform suitable for developers to sandbox or deploy apps as it natively supports Tanzu Basic, native K8s, and PKS.

    • Automation: Through various tools and deep integration, the solution allows users to automate complex infrastructure-as-code and tile UI-driven workflows. This allows them to deploy X-as-a-Service and maintain full access control and visibility at the same time.

    • Application Platform as a Service: This feature enables users to deliver their own catalog-based applications or VMware Cloud Marketplace-certified third-party cloud applications through the plugin App Launchpad VMware Cloud Director.

    • GPU as a Service: Utilizing Nvidia AI Enterprise, this feature provides support for GPU as a Service and delivers multi-tenant GPU services for customers who require high-performance compute for GPU-specific applications.

    • Secure cloud: The solution supports multiple security-centric features to deliver an enterprise-class cloud service, including NSX-T distributed firewalling, workload encryption, and integrated disaster recovery replication.

    vCloud Director Benefits

    VMware vCloud Director offers various benefits to its users. Some of these include:

    • The solution provides a highly efficient self-service model which consists of a virtual data center compute, network, storage, and security.

    • VMware vCloud Director offers its users multi-tenancy infrastructure with deep automation which facilitates their daily tasks.

    • The product is cost-efficient, as it is service-ready on its very first day and offers a high revenue from services.

    • Businesses can deliver services to their clients in a timely manner through this product, benefitting from its natively integrated solutions.

    • VMware vCloud Director provides users with high flexibility, as it allows businesses to stretch networks across virtual data centers globally.

    • The solution provides load-balancing capabilities, which facilitate the creation of new hybrid applications and digital transformation initiatives.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Ajit Y., a cloud architect at a computer software company, likes VMware vCloud Director because it is a stable, truly multitenant software and the go-to tool for infrastructure as a service.

    Kashif F., a divisional engineer at National Telecom Corporatio, rates vCloud Director highly because the product can be used for infrastructure provisioning without using a platform service.

    VMware Aria Operations is a high-ranking virtualization management and cloud management tool that automates and simplifies IT management to the applications it supports. It achieves this through full-stack visibility from physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure. The product allows users to enable self-driving IT operations management across private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. This is conducted with the unified operations platform that delivers continuous performance, capacity and cost optimization, and integrated compliance through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and predictive analytics.

    VMware Aria Operations Use Cases

    VMware Aria Operations has several use cases, some of which include:

    • Continuous performance optimization: VMware Aria Operations allows users to assure application performance at a minimal cost, facilitated by real-time predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. The product can be used to automatically balance workloads, improve consolidation rations, optimize and rightsize workloads, and avoid contention.

    • Capacity and cost management: VMware Aria Operations can be utilized to reduce cost and improve efficiency with real-time ML-based capacity and cost analytics. The solution uses these tools to visualize cost savings opportunities and accelerate decision-making.

    • Intelligent remediation: This product can also be used to predict, prevent, and troubleshoot issues with actionable insights. Through other VMware integrations, users can streamline and centralize IT operations.

    • Integrated compliance: The solution can be utilized to reduce risk and enforce IT regulatory standards for VMware Cloud through integrated compliance and automated drift remediation.

    VMware Aria Operations Features

    The product has various features which users can utilize. Several of the features that the 2022 version of VMware Aria Operations introduced include:

    • Management pack builder: This feature is a no-code solution that allows users to expand their operations visibility to anywhere they wish. The builder allows users to connect to a data source using an HTTP or Amazon AWS data source, as well as to make API calls, create objects, and build out relationships with other objects in the product.

    • Public cloud basic actions: This is a set of features that allows VMware Aria Operations users to initiate actions automatically via the product's UI for AWS, Microsoft Azure, or GCP CE instances.

    • Rule-based application discovery: Through this new feature of the product, users can easily discover multiple applications running in all or specific areas of infrastructure and view associated resources. This can be achieved through simple user-defined rules, including discovering applications based on tags, object names, and properties.

    • Aria Operations capacity management: This feature allows organizations to view the results of what-if analysis based on their allocation model and specify business hours for capacity calculations.

    • Alerts: This is a set of features that include components called Conditions and Symptoms, which are used to alert different types of issues on the platform.

    • User access management: Through this feature, users can benefit from improved ways to configure in VMware Aria Operations with the introduction of scopes.

    • Support for raw device mapping storage: This feature allows users to get configuration details about their raw device mapping (RDM), such as disk sharing, compatibility mode, and SCSI Bus Sharing.

    VMware Aria Operations Benefits

    VMware Aria Operations brings various benefits to the organizations using it. Among them are the following: 

    • The product helps organizations reduce unplanned downtime and maximize return on investment (ROI) in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

    • VMware Aria Operations simplifies management for hybrid clouds from migration assessments.

    • Users can benefit from an accelerated journey to VMware Cloud on AWS through this solution.

    • The product can be delivered on premises or as a service, providing flexibility for its users.

    • VMware Aria Operations can increase operational efficiency through monitoring and management features.

    • The solution accelerates decision-making through detailed cost analytics, which is visualized for users' convenience.

    • VMware Aria Operations allows users to both utilize standard compliance templates and create their own custom ones.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Mohamed N., a tech lead VMware support engineer at a tech services company, appreciates VMware Aria Operations because it is easy to use, stable, and support is always available.

    Mojtaba K., a senior system administrator at a comms service provider, values VMware Aria Operations due to the fact that its dashboards give you a glimpse of what is really going on in your virtualized environment.

    Sample Customers
    MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.
    Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider35%
    Computer Software Company27%
    Transportation Company8%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company18%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Energy/Utilities Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise54%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise70%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise69%
    Buyer's Guide
    VMware Aria Operations vs. vCloud Director
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Aria Operations vs. vCloud Director and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    vCloud Director is ranked 5th in Cloud Management with 61 reviews while VMware Aria Operations is ranked 2nd in Cloud Management with 360 reviews. vCloud Director is rated 8.0, while VMware Aria Operations is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of vCloud Director writes "Offers flexibility of handling workloads and good scalability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Aria Operations writes "It has good stability, but the report-generating feature needs improvement". vCloud Director is most compared with VMware Aria Automation, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), Morpheus, CloudStack and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, whereas VMware Aria Operations is most compared with VMware Aria Automation, VMware vSphere, IBM Turbonomic, Veeam ONE and CloudPhysics. See our VMware Aria Operations vs. vCloud Director report.

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    We monitor all Cloud Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.